


The Troubles of Fire Lord Zuko

by Chisscientist



Series: Ashes of Empire [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Annoying relatives, Assassination Attempt(s), Bad Slang, Being firelord is hard, Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Gen, Humor, Imperialism, Learning on the job, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai is a military incompetent, Post-War, Roku can't keep his nose out of other people's conversations, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, aggressive pastry, death by paperwork, evil relatives, weird dreams about silk paintings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chisscientist/pseuds/Chisscientist
Summary: The lesser-known hazards of being Fire Lord. Ch 5: Clearing the Air
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Ashes of Empire [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019376
Comments: 17
Kudos: 123





	1. Not Another Assassination Attempt!

Zuko was eating dinner with a couple of ministers when a tan blur flew towards him from the left. Someone screamed. He dove to the right, rolling and landing in a crouch with fire in his hands. He peeked over the table for a split second. No incoming table-crushing giant masonry.

"Stay down!" said Guard Captain Kumaro.

"What in Cho's lair?" said Guardsman Kuzon.

"Oh for the love of..." said Kumaro.

Zuko peered over the top of the table again. One of the new servants was standing with his hands up, as Guardsman Kuzon grabbed his arms.

Zuko looked back at where he'd been sitting. It was covered in what looked like fruit pie. The filling had splattered everywhere. He looked back at the young man, snuffed the fire he'd been holding ready, and stood up. "Did you just throw a pie at me?" he said. "I thought it was a rock at first. I nearly threw fire at you! Why?"

The pie-thrower glared at Zuko, looking pale. "My brother worked in a factory manufacturing tanks. Now he's out of work. Thanks a lot!"

"So are you, now!" snapped Zuko. He took a deep breath. "We're retooling the weapons factories to make trade items and other useful things as fast as we can, but it's going to take time. I'm sorry it has affected your family, but you can't just throw pies at people."

"It's better than fireballs," someone muttered.

"Fire Lord, what do you want us to do with him?" asked Kuzon.

Zuko took a couple more deep breaths, and squashed the impulse to have the idiot dumped in the lake. "He no longer works here, and he is no longer permitted in the palace. Since he didn't hurt anyone, and a pie doesn't qualify as a deadly weapon... just go away."

Shaking his head, he sat down. Then he realized he'd sat in the pie.


	2. Trouble With Lightning

"Sifu Hotman, I heard that your uncle has been teaching you lightning bending. How's that going?" said Aang, as they finished up with the warm-up katas.

"Pretty well," said Zuko, "but it's still a bit erratic for me. If I am not focused singlemindedly on what I'm doing, or have mixed emotions about anything, it explodes and knocks me over. Why, do you want to learn?"

"I'm not sure," said Aang. "It's hard to use lightning without a serious risk of killing someone, and you know I don't want to do that."

"I'd rather avoid killing anyone if I can," said Zuko, "but it is useful to be able to produce lightning if I have to. My family members keep throwing it at me. Azula can still bend. If she can produce lightning, I need to be able to."

"How is your sister these days?" said Aang.

Zuko sighed and crossed his arms. "Improving slowly, from what the doctors tell me, and from what I saw when I visited. I'm not sure how her bending is doing, given they aren't letting her do more than meditate with candles."

Aang nodded. "What are you going to do if she recovers?"

"I don't know. It depends what she recovers to. I don't want to lock up my little sister, but if she's like she was the last year of the war, letting her loose risks her wrecking everything. She came up with the idea to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, and Toph can't tell if she's lying. How can I trust her?"

"I guess you're going to have to wait and see. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." Aang smiled suddenly. "But then people you've given up on suddenly show up, refuse to buzz off, and insist on teaching you to firebend."

Zuko snorted. "Very true."

"Can you show me the lightning? It would be nice to see some that isn't trying to kill me or my friends."

"Okay," said Zuko. "But you need to stand at least ten feet behind me. I am not good at this yet, and I don't want to hurt you."

Aang moved back ten feet, bouncing slightly with curiosity.

Zuko looked around him, and said loudly "Lightning on the practice field."

The guards nodded back.

Zuko closed his his eyes and just breathed for a few seconds. Then, frowning in concentration, Zuko moved his arms in the large circles Aang remembered from the time Azula temporarily killed him. Aang's heart skipped a beat, then steadied. Sparks of electricity flared into being around Zuko's hands. Zuko brought his hands together, two fingers pointing forwards.

A small bolt of lightning arced from his fingers, striking about 8 feet in front of him. The ground steamed where it had hit.

"Wow," said Aang. "Well done. How does it work?"

"Well, you have to separate the energies – that's the tricky part. It only works if you aren't emotionally confused or distracted..." Zuko moved to demonstrate again. When he brought his hands together, energy exploded outwards, and knocked him flat on his back.

"Are you okay?" said Aang, running over to his friend.

"I'm fine," said Zuko, getting up and brushing himself off. "That's what happens when you fail to separate the energies properly before bringing them together. Still happens to me about one time in four. This is why we need to have Iroh teach you if you actually want to try this. I am not ready to teach anyone yet."

Aang looked at the soot marks across Zuko's face and hands, and the way hair had come out of his topknot and was now sticking out in all directions. He couldn't keep from grinning. "Yeah, you're probably right about that." The grin turned sly. "Can you get that to happen at the place you're aiming at? It is would be almost like being Combustion Man!"

Zuko rubbed the back of his neck absently. "I'm not sure. It usually happens right when you combine the energies, but when I redirected Ozai's lightning back at his feet, there was an explosion that knocked him flying. If I brought the energies together as close to the target as I could, with no attempt to stop them combining explosively... I have to try that." Zuko started to get into position, then relaxed. "But I am going to run it past Uncle first. He may have already tried it and know what happens."

Aang nodded. "I wish I'd been that smart when I started learning firebending from Jeong Jeong. I think I'll join you. This is too interesting not to learn. I don't actually have to use it."

"Sounds good. We're practicing lightning out here tomorrow evening."

"I'll be there."  
_______

After going off-duty, Guardswoman Akane went up to Captain Kumaro. It was only her fourth shift, so dumb questions from the newbie would be expected. "What is the relationship between the Fire Lord and the Avatar?"

"They're good friends, and the Fire Lord taught the Avatar to firebend. Why?" asked Kumaro.

"Well, he called the Fire Lord 'Sifu Hotman'."

Kumaro chuckled. "'Hotman' is a very old slang term for a Fire Nation man." He cocked his head at her. "Why?"

Akane looked away. "On the island I'm from, calling someone 'hotman', well, people use it as a pet name for a boyfriend or husband."

Kumaro laughed. "Okay, I can see why you were confused. I suppose I should warn the Avatar about that.

Akane shook her head "That's not necessary."

"You're probably not the only person confused, and the court loves gossip more than is healthy." said Kumaro.

"Good to know," said Akane and beat a hasty retreat.


	3. Speaking of Sozin

It started with Zuko walking through the Great Hall, past the giant silk paintings of past Fire Lords. He paid them little mind, until something moved. Was someone hiding there? Zuko grabbed for his dao blades, only to remember he didn't carry them in the palace. Nothing moved for a moment, and then Zuko realized that it wasn't someone hiding behind the fabric.

It was the painted Sozin himself. He was shrinking. Zuko blinked and took a step back, but Sozin not only shrank to about three inches taller than Zuko, he started waving, calling out cheerfully: "Greetings, Great-grandson. How fares the Fire Nation?"

Seriously? On the other hand... Zuko's eyes narrowed, and his mouth quirked in something that couldn't quite be called a smile. "Remember that war you started? It finally ended last month. We lost, and at least 80 million people are now dead."

Sozin looked taken aback. "The Fire Nation cannot have lost, surely? It was going well when I died. We had destroyed the Air Nomads, set up multiple colonies in the Earth Kingdom, and defeated the Water Tribes on the seas. Are all my descendants incompetent? I could have sworn Azulon was a worthy successor." He peered at Zuko. "You do seem very young to be Fire Lord, though. How old are you?"

"Seventeen next week," said Zuko, glaring. "I wouldn't be Fire Lord now if Ozai hadn't been so bent on burning everything he touched."

"Who is Ozai?" asked Sozin, frowning.

"My father, your grandson."

Sozin's frown deepened, and he crossed his arms. "Tell me how the Fire Nation came to lose a war we were well on our way to winning."

"The war with the Earth Kingdom turned into a war of attrition, and they had more people."

Sozin looked unimpressed. "The Fire Nation had already taken much of the Northeast by the time of my death, and had planted colonies and settled in. The plan was to bite off chunks off the Earth Kingdom as we had the ability, then incorporate them into the Fire Nation. Repeat as the opportunity arose. As the locals saw the benefits being on our side of the March of Progress, they would become useful citizens themselves. We brought education, better transportation, effective government..."

"Death, extortion with menaces, and occupation by a foreign power that treated them as second-class citizens or worse. I spent months as a refugee in the Earth Kingdom, and I've seen what our empire looks like from the receiving end. They hate our guts, and I can't even blame them."

"Then your father was doing it wrong! It wasn't like that when I ruled. The economy of the areas we annexed tripled in ten years. The Earth Kings are incompetent, and the subkings get away with appalling things. The common people are miserable, all while sitting on the richest land in the world."

Zuko's fists clenched, and a wisp of smoke escaped. "The money went into the hands of profiteers and colonial administrators. The common people ended up as refugees, working for the enrichment of others on land they used to own, or dead. By the tens of millions. This is what your March of Progress looks like. It sucks! As for our own people, most of them haven't gained much either." Zuko took a deep breath.

"Progress-" Sozin began.

"Let me finish!" said Zuko.

He and Sozin locked gazes. "Continue, then," said Sozin with ill grace. "Tell me how badly you and my grandson have ruined what I began."

"We lost 13 million Fire Nation citizens in this stupid war. There is no one who hasn't lost someone they love. We're in war debt up to our eyebrows to our own banks and population. I don't know when or if we can repay those, plus we have to pay reparations to the other nations."

"Pay reparations!" said Sozin. "We can't have lost so badly as that. Have you no shame? You're not even trying to protect your people."

"We lost that badly. There is now a fully realized Avatar. He sank nearly half the Fire Nation surface fleet last winter. We lost the airship fleet and Fire Lord Ozai last month. The Earth Kingdom has teamed up with both Water Tribes and the Avatar. We can't defend the Colonies, and I'm not sure we could stop an invasion of the Home Islands. It would be a bloodbath even if we did."

"How in Cho's Lair did we get into this situation?" Sozin demanded. "This is a disaster."

"There's more," said Zuko. "The Fire Nation economy runs on war, and I'm not sure whether we can convert to peacetime without it collapsing. We import 30% of our rice from our Colonies, which I'm not sure we can keep. 80% of our coal, and 60% of our iron ore come from Earth Kingdom territory we are about to lose. I'm spending all day, every day, surrounded by reports of dysfunction and conflicting or downright impossible demands."

"We shouldn't have lost," said Sozin.

"I deal with the world as it is, not as I wish it were," said Zuko, shrugging. They were both silent for a few seconds. Then Zuko continued: "And our situation is that the people of the other nations hate us. Standard treatment of captured firebenders in the Earth Kingdom is to crush their hands and feet so they can't bend. I've witnessed an attempt at this, among other things. If I want a true peace in this environ-"

"Barbarians," Sozin cut in, looking disgusted. "That sort of thing is why I started colonizing the Earth Kingdom."

"If they're barbarians, what does murdering an entire nation of pacifists make us? I've been to the Air Temples, and I know what you did. My father tried to do the same to a large swath of the Earth Kingdom."

"You speak like a traitor!" Sozin's eyes narrowed. "You say the Avatar destroyed the fleets and your predecessor? Such a disaster could not have happened without Fire Nation help. Who trained the Avatar in firebending?"

"I did."

"Then you are one of the worst traitors in Fire Nation history!" Sozin snarled, his hands clenched into fists, though he did not move into a firebending stance or spark. "I cannot believe that one of my own line would fall so far as to betray his own nation for the Avatar. The blood of our people is on your hands – and you are nothing but a foreign puppet-king. Our people will not stand for this. You'll be dead by the time the year is out, and everything you try to build will burn. The Avatar will die, by poison or a knife in the back, and the Fire Nation will rise again."

"I may have betrayed my father, but I will never betray my people," said Zuko fiercely. "My loyalty to the Fire Nation is right where it was when my father and High General Bujing decided to throw an entire division of new recruits away in a stupid sacrifice gambit and I wound up banished and disfigured for daring to call them on it." He pointed to his scar.

Sozin frowned. "What exactly did your father do to that division?"

Zuko took a deep breath. "It was a diversion. They were to be used to lure an especially annoying Earth Kingdom battalion out of position so it could be destroyed by other troops, but no one had made any provision for getting the 41st division back again. It was made up of new recruits and would not have stood a chance against the rest of the enemy army."

"Lose a division to take out a battalion when the Earth Kingdom has more people and more soldiers than we do? Just why did this battalion need to be taken out at all costs? Was it made up entirely of earthbending masters guarding their best general?"

"No... although it had more earthbenders than normal and had caused more than its share of trouble."

"Divisions are still 10,000 plus people, while battalions are 1,000? That hasn't changed?"

"It hasn't changed," said Zuko.

Sozin pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. Zuko stared. Sozin does that too?

"My grandson was an idiot," said Sozin. "Even if the plan worked perfectly, too many victories like that would cost our country the war." He looked at Zuko again. "And he burned and banished you for objecting, while going ahead with the plan?"

Zuko nodded, though at the time he had been so angry about the betrayal of the young soldiers that he hadn't thought through the strategic implications.

"Were wasteful tactics like this common?"

"That one was worse than most, but while I was banished I heard stories of similar situations. I think my father, Bujing and Zhao had decided that ruthless meant effective, and my objection meant I had just questioned the entire basis of their strategy." _There must have been a reason why my father exploded like that, over and above his contempt for me._

"Damn cult of ruthlessness. There's always some idot who'll fall for it. If it took over the War Council and the Fire Lord was heading it..." Sozin glared at the ground for a moment, before angrily straightening. "No wonder we lost the war." he snarled. "Ruined by my fool of a grandson."

"I tried to tell you what would happen, but you did not listen," said Roku, appearing in ghostly blue outline in the middle of the hallway. "If you use evil means to achieve your ends, those means will snatch away the end you seek. When you began the war by planting colonies by force, betraying me to my death, and murdering the Air Nomads, it was never going to end anywhere good."

He turned to Zuko. "And if you hadn't switched sides when you did, it would likely have ended worse." His gaze turned fiercer. "Even if you took your own sweet time doing so."

"I know, Great-grandfather," said Zuko. He heard Sozin splutter, but continued: "Not doing differently at Ba Sing Se is my biggest regret. I am very lucky that Aang survived."

"So are we all," said Roku. He vanished.

Zuko turned back to find Sozin staring at him.

"Great-grandfather?" Sozin asked.

"Roku was my mother's paternal grandfather," said Zuko.

Sozin shook his head, looking rueful. "I would have been pleased by that, once."

Zuko felt a tug at his soul, and noticed that his eyes were closed. He opened them. Light was just peeking through the curtains as the sun rose. Another crazy dream. Well, at least it hadn't been the Battle of the North, or another replay of Azula or Ozai throwing fire or lightning at him.

He smiled. Actually, getting to tell Sozin off for being a mass murderer and hearing Sozin refer to Ozai as a fool had been kind of cathartic. Though he wished he was that articulate in real life!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The Fire Nation has a significantly smaller landmass than the Earth Kingdom, and given the amount of it that is mountainous and/or erupting at any given time, it should have a much smaller population than the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nation may have better training and much better technology than Earth Kingdom troops, but they can't afford a long war of attrition. This is supported by the complaints of Ozai's generals that they are spread too thin and having trouble holding what they've conquered pre-comet, and by Ozai's decision to burn the place to the ground as best he can with the comet's help.
> 
> A division is a larger unit of troops than a battalion. In the USA, a battalion consists of up to 1000 people. A division has 10,000-15,000 soldiers.
> 
> The death tolls are my own very rough guesses based on things like how many people died in the Taiping rebellion (China, 1850-1864, 20-30 million dead), and the deaths in the world wars (WW1 about 20 million in 4 years, WW2 50 million in 6+ years depending how you count the dead and the start-end dates of the war).
> 
> I'm assuming that the Hundred Years War did not go full-tilt for 100 years, that population density in the Earth Kingdom was lower than in 19th century China, that the populations of Air Nomads and the Southern Water Tribe were always pretty low, and that the death toll on the Northern Water tribe was limited. If I make none of these assumptions, the death toll shoots up really fast, and you end up with potentially over a hundred million deaths. A lot of these deaths would have been from things like disease and famine, rather than being directly attacked by bending or swords.
> 
> I am also assuming there were probably long lulls as both sides regained their strength, or as the Fire Nation consolidated its position in newly captured territory, or got distracted by the water tribes or internal problems. The import numbers are wild guesses because Zuko wanted to throw numbers at Sozin.


	4. Rice Report

Report on Year 100 Annual Rice Production for the District of Shu Jing: 

Table of Contents:

Introduction: pg 2

Rice production by county: pg 23

Rice production per person: pg 29

Fertilizer use and types, with effects on productivity of land: pg 37

Labor productivity: pg 45

Poetry about rice: pg 60

The impossibility of increasing rice harvests without additional labor: pg 97

Effects of additional labor on land productivity pg 120

Appendix:

Rice Prices in the last 180 years, as compared to other districts: pg 153

___________________________

Zuko rubbed his eyes, currently on pg 41, and tried to persuade himself that feeding the nation was critically important, and that he therefore needed to stay awake and read this. No matter how boring and opaque the writer had been. He groaned, and reread the paragraph. What exactly was the writer on about? He would have sworn that whoever had written this was trying to hide his point in endless verbiage. At least he could probably safely skip the poetry section.

Uncle looked up from his own reading material, which looked like letters of some sort, rather than reports. Lucky man. "What's the matter?" Uncle asked. "It's getting late. What are you reading?"

Zuko held up the report so his uncle could see the title. "A 197 page report about rice in Shu Jing. I need to know this, but the writer is either the most boring person alive, or is trying to hide his point from me."

Uncle walked over and plucked the offending doorstop of a report out of his hand, then flipped through it. "Send it back with a demand for a summary. You do not have time to read a 200 page report on rice production on every district in the Fire Nation. Agriculture Minister Hira needs all the details, you need the big picture. Delegate, my nephew. Though the poetry isn't bad," he added thoughtfully, pausing to look more closely. "I think the writer may have missed his calling in life."

Zuko gave a lopsided smile. "It isn't just me?"

"No," said Uncle, handing the report back. "Demand a summary, and go get some sleep. A man needs his rest."

"You're not sleeping," said Zuko.

"I'm not working, either. These letters are pai sho by mail."

Zuko snorted. "White Lotus still counts as work, Uncle."

"Pakku is a mean pai sho player... and and not everything is related to unusual uses of the White Lotus tile. Sometimes pai sho is just pai sho. But I should probably stop and go to bed too."

"Ok, I'll go and get some rest." Zuko wrote a request for a summary on the the first page of the report, and paused. "Thanks, Uncle."

"You're welcome, Nephew, said Uncle, giving Zuko's shoulder a squeeze. "Always."


	5. Clearing the Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the Ba Sing Se Peace Talks...

Chief Hakoda watched as young Fire Lord Zuko left the room. Before Minister Ukarno could follow his lord, Hakoda stopped him.

“I have noticed that you do not seem terribly pleased with your new leader’s decisions,” he said.

“And if I am not?” said Ukarno. “I fail to see how my opinion on the Colonies is of interest to the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.”

“The peace of the world is of interest to all who live on it,” said Hakoda, “but my worry has nothing to do with the colonies directly. I’ll be blunt,” he gave a sharklike smile. “I hate the Fire Nation. You murdered my wife, killed my people, and forced me to go off to war where I did not see my children for two years. My children were forced go to war – at fourteen and fifteen. I’m sick of fighting and I want to go home, but if I have to I and others like me will raze your nation to the ground. The only thing stopping me is the boy who just walked out that door. He may have chased my kids from one pole to the other while hunting the Avatar, but since then he rescued me from prison, saved my daughter’s life twice, and ended the fighting. We’re now working on a lasting peace. If he dies, you will have an invasion fleet knocking on the Gates of Azulon within six months.” Hakoda gave Ukarno a smile with no mirth in it. “Don’t try me.”

Ukarno paled, “I see,” was all he said. 

“I am glad,” said Hakoda, and walked out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: In Ch 1, Zuko's assassin problems meet Canada's pie minister incident. Someone pied Jean Chretien (Canadian Prime Minister at the time) in 2000. Unlike Zuko, they actually managed to hit him with the pie. There was a rash of political pieings in the 1990s. Surely someone out there is ticked with Zuko, but doesn't actually want to kill him.


End file.
